Explore "The Dying Knight and the Fauns" by Robert Graves on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Through the dreams of yesternight / My blood brother great in fight / I saw lying, slowly dying / Where the weary woods were sighing / With the rustle of the birches, / With the quiver of the larches. / Woodland fauns with hairy haunches / Grin in wonder through the branches / Woodland fauns that know no fear. / Wondering, they wander near / Munching mushrooms red as coral, / Bunches, too, of rue and sorrel; / Wonder at his radiant fairness, / At his dinted, shattered harness, / With uncouth and bestial sounds, / Knowing nought of war or wounds: / But the crimson life-blood oozes / And make roses of the daisies, / Persian carpets of the mosses -- / Softly now his spirit passes / As the bee forsakes the lily, / As the berry leaves the holly; / But the fauns still think him living, / And with bay leaves they are weaving / Crowns to deck him. Well they may! / He was worthy of the Bay.